Nicholas Stuart is a columnist with the Canberra Times.
Nick Stuart has written three books,
Kevin Rudd: An Unauthorised Political Biography;
What Goes Up: Behind the 2007 Election; and
Rudd's Way: November 2007 - June 2010.

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

WILL AIRPOWER BE ENOUGH?

From close up the airpower in the Middle East is very impressive.

A terrific photo taken by some brilliant RAAF photographers last night

But, as I ask in my Tuesday column for the Canberra Times, is that going to be enough?

Changing dynamic

The Australian pilot speaks quietly.
“See that fire down there.” I peer out of the window of the KC-30 air-to-air
refuelling aircraft and look at northern Iraq, 20,000 feet below. “The flares
coming from the centre of the town were about three times bigger last week.
There was some pretty hard fighting going on . . . “

His mission is to refuel the
pairs of jets loitering below for hours, waiting for a clean target to attack.
Two RAAF Super Hornets have escorted us into the combat zone. Now they’ve
topped up and peeled away for an attack. A familiar accent suddenly crackles
through the headphone – the Aussie Wedgetail, a Command and Control aircraft,
is currently in charge of the airspace over northern Iraq. It’s allocating
tasks to the circling fighters; relaying missions from the Combined Air
Operations Centre; directing aircraft towards targets.

There’s been little hint of the intense
tempo of this raging air battle in the media. Instead, the focus of our
reporting is skews inexorably towards the tiny Syrian town of Kobane. Here, surrounded
Kurdish militia engage in a sea-sawing street battle with ISIL fighters.
Because the contested buildings lie near the Turkish border, within easy range
of the zoom lenses of photographers, its place in the conflict has been
magnified. Kobane’s become an easy-to-understand symbol of the war. As long as
the village holds, it seems to offer hope. Because of this it’s now sucking up both
sides resources; it’s been elevated to the status of a victory marker.

Yet this is just one city in a
war spreading from the outskirts of Baghdad, across Syria, and on up to the
Turkish border. ISIL’s rise was sudden. Technicals – four-wheel drive vehicles
mounting heavy machine guns – sped quickly through the countryside, outflanking
defending government troops who were ruthlessly shot. The fall of the Iraqi
capital began to acquire an air of inevitability.

But we’d mistaken tactical
success for strategic strength. ISIL’s hard edge of light, mobile forces spread
quickly, like a stain across the map. Now, however, the pace has slowed. Over
dinner an Australian lieutenant colonel, who’s served in Iraq, asks me what I
think will happen next. I begin pontificating before going quiet. I realise he
probably has a much better idea. “So what do you think will happen?” I ask.

“They’ve outrun their resources,”
he says. “They’re weaker than we think.” This is the key to the West’s
strategy.

Firstly, recognise the small
scale of the combat. Those “vital” Kurdish reinforcements for Kobane, the ones
slipping in through Turkey this weekend, only totalled about 150 fighters. The
world is obsessing over a company-level struggle. Last week a US airstrike had
a significant effect killing just 30 ISIL militants. These are not big armies
swirling around the desert sands. Only a relatively small number of fanatics
are prosecuting the fight and a determined army should be able to stop them.
Yet who can blame a soldier for being unwilling to die for a country riven by
sectarian, ethnic and political divides? As soon as such forces are
outmanoeuvred, they retreat. In a few places they’re holding on but the
question remains; who will relieve them? Nobody wants to die. The tide needs to
change. Unless something is done to turn the militants around their advance
will continue.

The crux of the fight is now Anbar
province, west of Baghdad. Here ISIL is still making gains, inching towards
besieging the provincial capital. Airpower alone won’t stop the advance. What
it can do, however, is support conventional Iraqi forces by bombing and preventing
the terrorists from concentrating. This might just be enough.

If ISIL’s momentum stalls; if the
bombing campaign hits some critical targets; if the national army can get its
act together, then the fanatics will be turned back. This doesn’t mean they’ll
collapse; it’s just one part of the strategy. You can see this by examining the
bomb list for last Saturday.

Twenty-two airstrikes. Five
buildings destroyed, one building damaged – but what on earth does this mean? ISIL
headquarters offices, or oil refineries? One ‘artillery piece’ (what calibre?) destroyed.
Nine ‘fighting positions’ and four ‘staging locations’ destroyed. Small and
large units were also attacked (presumably, on some occasions, by strafing
fire). Is this effective? Is it enough to disrupt ISIL? Possibly. To destroy
it? Probably not.

It gives us an insight into
coalition strategy though. Slow and methodical, yet without the follow-up
strength on the ground to guarantee victory. Jordanian and Saudi planes joined
in with the attacks so the allies are holding together, yet there are no forces
to exploit this assault from the air. It’s given the army breathing space. Now
Shia militia forces (armed and equipped by Iran) are moving into territory that
should be being occupied by the Iraqi military. This allows us to speculate
about the future.

The national army is seemingly incapable
of fighting. Yet nor, seemingly, does Iraq’s Prime Minister want our ‘advisors’
on the ground. In fact, it’s difficult to see what they’d do. It’s not training
that Baghdad’s forces need; it’s stiffening. The discipline to stand together
and trust to make sure soldiers will stick together under fire. These aren’t
attributes that can be imparted by foreigners – the government itself needs to
inspire its soldiers.

Of course this fight isn’t the
only battlefield. Cutting off its money would cripple ISIS, although the US
doesn’t want to destroy infrastructure that Baghdad will need later. Without a
vision for the future there’s no reason for Iraq’s soldiers to fight. And we
return to the squabbling, myopic, politicians of the capital. The West can’t
intervene here: every time we have we’ve sent the country further backwards.
Will success on the battlefield be enough to change the dynamic?